I’m not sure any filmmaker ever chose a theme and stuck with it as doggedly as the British (cliche alert) “enfant terrible” Ken Russell, whose work is being celebrated at Lincoln Center this week. Russell’s Big Theme was that of the caged genius, repressed by bourgeois expectations (“Savage Messiah”), hierarchy (“The Boy Friend”), violent memories (“Tommy”) or even a lack of access to his primal subconscious (“Altered States,” the first Ken Russell movie I ever saw). Having watched three Russell movies in the past couple of weeks — I just watched “Tommy” for the first time over the weekend — I’m already tired of him. (I walked out of “Savage Messiah,” about a loudly declaiming artist jabbering forth about his dull notions of Art in pre-World War I France, though it must be said that the then-young Helen Mirren delivers quite a memorable nude scene) My esteemed New York Press colleague Armond White considers “Tommy” to be Russell’s masterpiece, but to me the film exists solely because, for a brief window of time in the mid-70s, you could smoke weed in a movie theater. (Especially at once-ubiquitous student-aimed midnight screenings, where films like “Tommy,” “Eraserhead,” “The Last House on the Left,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Reefer Madness” were shown in constant rotation). “Tommy,” based on the Who album, is pure hyperbole — it makes the very similar Alan Parker rock anomie epic “Pink Floyd the Wall” look restrained — but it isn’t even good hyperbole, just a seasick kaleidoscope of thrashing hippie madness. It isn’t camp, either, because there’s no tongue-in-cheek element: Russell takes his thudding operatics very seriously. There are only a few scenes, notably Elton John’s turn as the Pinball Wizard, that aren’t embarrassing. (And I enjoyed Jack Nicholson as a singing shrink). But if you like cine-madness, see for yourself. “Tommy,” together with Russell’s films on Liszt, Mahler and Valentino, is showing at the Lincoln Center festival this week.